Chelsea’s veteran forward Olivier Giroud last night overtook Michel Platini’s goalscoring record for France, scoring twice in a 7-1 friendly victory vs Ukraine to go into second place in his country’s all-time top scorers list.
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What happened on the night
His first goal yesterday evening came after 24 minutes, when he found space on the edge of the D before he curled a delightful effort into the top left corner, leaving Ukraine’s keeper Heorhiy Bushchan motionless.
His second and France’s third goal of the night came nine minutes later, when Houssem Aouar’s shot from range was saved by Bushchan, and Giroud was there to head home the rebound.
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The record to beat
The man Giroud now sits behind in the French scorers’ list is Thierry Henry, who has scored 51 goals for Les Blues and the way the Chelsea man is playing at the moment for his country, he could well beat that record and what an achievement that would be for him.
Giroud made his debut for the senior side in November 2011 and since then, he has established himself as a solid player for the national team and his hold-up style of play has been seen as a huge success under Didier Deschamps.
To put some gloss on the achievement, last night’s match was Giroud’s 100th game for France, putting him 8th on the all-time list of capped French players and three caps behind 7th placed Deschamps.
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"It's an honour and I feel a lot of pride"
After the match, Giroud spoke to French TV channel TF1 and highlighted his happiness about his achievement.
“I feel a lot of pride, it’s a great honour for me and I’m happy it happened for my 100th cap. I’m happy I did it in front of [Andriy] Shevchenko [now Ukraine manager], he was one of my favourite players, if not my favourite player when I was a teenager.”
Two goals scored with his childhood idol watching on will surely give Giroud belief that he can go and continue to chase Henry’s record, as France now turn to their UEFA Nations League group games, where they face Portugal on Sunday and then Croatia on Wednesday.